Archives for June 2016

Did you know that humans spend half of their waking time daydreaming? Our brains wander by nature, jumping from one thought to the next. If there’s nothing important for our minds to focus on, whether it be a conversation with a friend or the latest episode of Game of Thrones, they simply slip back into their daydreaming state. The question then becomes this: what’s the best way to capture a wandering mind?

Simple, by telling stories.

Marketing is all about sharing your product or service to customers, and storytelling is a great way to accomplish this. Enter in the case study, an in-depth analysis that tells a story about a customer and your company. In fact, 92% of customers prefer that media message sound like a story. Nobody wants to be sold to, but a convincing story helps consumers understand a particular problem and feel the rush of relief when everyone lives happily ever after. Keep on reading to learn how you can use a case study to market your business.

We all know that criticism can sometimes be hard to take, but we also learn very early on that it usually makes for a stronger and better business.

But today, the stakes have gotten even higher.

Now, customer complaints are increasingly being channeled through the oh-so-public social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. This means that companies have to get on board fast, or risk the wrath of their unhappy customers’ complaints and criticisms going viral.

A 2013 study by Simply Measured showed that 30% of brands have a dedicated customer service handle on Twitter, with the average response to a complaint being 5.1 hours. Only 10% of companies answered within the hour.

And the numbers haven’t gotten any better since then.

In 2015, a study by brandwatch showed that most retail brands still don’t listen to customers on Twitter. They discovered that 46.6% of brands engaged with any tagged @mentions (which were categorized as neutral, questions or complaints). 64.6% responded to questions within 5 days and only 11.2% responded within one hour.

To help you figure out how to handle customer service on social media the right way, I’ve compiled some examples of the good, the bad and the ugly so you can learn what you should and shouldn’t be doing!